3 Cigars
by TheMaddnessOfDr.Strangelove
Summary: Earth-6109. In a Marvel vision of the war, three men converge on a rundown gas station, reminisce, and fight Terminators as Skynet takes the war against the remaining humans, metahumans, and mutants to the next level. Post Marvel Ultimate Alliance II.
1. Prologue

_Author's Note: The continuity representative of the Marvel Universe in this story is/mirrors Earth-6109 (Videogame: Marvel Ultimate Alliance I and II) and as such has taken place some years after the second installment, on the heels of the thwarted Nanite pandemic and Superhuman Registration Act. Thus, appearing characters are based/inspired physically upon their Earth-6109 counterparts._

_As for the Terminator Universe, the reader can draw any inference that they may, as the story will not conflict with established canon other than acting as though the Marvel Universe were apart of it._

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_3 billion human lives ended on August 29th, 2010. The survivors of the nuclear fire called the war Judgment Day. They lived only to face a new nightmare: the war against the machines._

Prologue: Yellow Spandex.

Pain. And pink stuff. A normal day in the life of Logan, former X-Man and active _human_ resistance member. Even as he pulled himself—well—bits of himself, from the wreckage of the downed HK, the word _human_ seemed so strange to him. He had spent the better part of his long existence very aware of his difference and indifference to and toward the human race. As a reluctant follower of Professor Wheels, he'd fought hard under the moniker of _mutant _to establish equality for the estranged population. And now…well, when a quarter of the world's population goes bye-bye in the blink of an eye, people drop dividers really quick. There was no mutant versus human anymore…God, how good it should have felt to say that. Aware that his bowel had been torn open in the crash, the yellow clad warrior stood silently heaving watching the ruined wasteland stretching out before him. Atop his metal mountain, he reveled mournfully in the _dead_ silence, broken only by the plop of a few of his more viral organs slipping through his exposed abdomen. He counted. _Appendix…don't even need that…liver…pancreas…damn boy…goin' for extra points today._ His candor did nothing to dissolve the thoughts that now possessed his every waking moment. Earlier times. To think the antisocial caknuckle head would have ever missed the stink of human hide encroaching on his territory. When cities of glass and stone thrived, he wanted nothing more than to escape it, to some place of empty solitude...even the negative zone prison. Now all he wanted was to go back. _Human hide_. The smoldering stench of scorched flesh flared his nostrils, just long enough to send a grim chill up his spine, before dashing back off into the catalog of phantom smells. _Smelled just like burning newspaper._

His wounds finally healed, to his dismay. How awesome it would be to drop dead right there, and have it over with. Far better than the alternative. Carrying on. And on. And On.

_And on._ And all the while counting off the names of each of the X-Men that were dead…against those that were still breathing…as far as he knew. Hard to keep in touch when Fury and Connor had spread everyone that was left so thin across the states. Couldn't blame them. His—their—_special_ talents had _special _uses. When one man could take on a single HK-Aerial and bring it down, then grow his own head back if need be, special was the only phrase that covered all the bases accurately enough…without profanity. Not to mention, not everybody could say that had survived the nuclear fire…first hand. For the first few years, nobody thought the unfathomable Wolverine would ever be anything other than a giant scab in a yellow, wing masked jumpsuit. Then one day, it all just peeled off like a chameleon shedding its membrane. Logan's new pelt was as smooth as a baby's bottom…for a couple of minutes. Then grit and grime quickly overtook it again.

That was another thing that he used to like that this war had made him hate. The war had earned a rep for doing that to good things. That thin layer of soot that cakes a whole body down to the whites of finger nails…like you've been working in a junk shop all day. And the slightly sour odor that comes with it. No more did it carry pleasant memories. He had no pleasant memories, just bad ones…what hadn't been blanketed it out by Weapon X, of course.

His mask stuck to his face, sticky with sweat, but could not blot out the reek that the wind gusted under his nose as he took his first steps down off the debris. The bloodhound had a scent. _It's close…but—_

Before he could finish the thought, his high-powered ears caught the unmistakable sound of rustling…and gears. Through the burned metal and circuitry the scatting scurried up to his location like the patter of a cockroach across a pizza box. It made his skin crawl…the sound of it straightening up…still deadly…this mimicry of man. He could feel the gritting face, analyzing him like a piece of meat…to be exterminated. It wouldn't get the chance.

"I'm not that easy, bub." The adamantium claws couldn't completely decapitate the bare boned T-800. Not enough force behind the blow. So, once again, he had to stare down the glowing eyes as they faded away. "You smell like sushi."

The HK must have crashed onto it. Just a single Terminator? What had been doing, stranded out there in the desert? _Maybe the same thing I'm doing stranded out here. Being stranded._ For more than three months, Wolverine had been separated from his unit. Tech-Com had been stationed in Detroit for a while, but after the last hope in that fallen city, the old OCP headquarters, had turn out to be a red herring, orders came down from Connor, via com-link, and through Natasha—the Widow— that the Detroit front had to be abandoned. The sudden dismiss of it had been bad for morale. His guys had spent months staking it out, making sure it hadn't become a Skynet stronghold. After the break in, things went smoothly until it was realized that the only way to get the hardware up and running was through a neural net. The second it was online it would belong to Skynet. The whole lot had to be destroyed. The sudden dismissal, as though they had never been there at all, hurt. Quashed the last ounce of hope he had for turning the tide. There was a suicidal mood about the men after that. That's why, Logan reckoned, they were spotted. The attack was brief, but packed a wallop no one had the energy to repel. It scattered everyone. And now, he had no way of knowing if they were even still alive. And command wouldn't take the chance looking for them. Fury was busy on the East coast and Connor was having some luck stabilizing the west in L.A., so with that in mind, Logan had set a heading for America's former pansy capitol. Survey some good news for a while.

Suddenly, as he let the silenced metal nightmare fall out of his grip, he saw something. Indeed, like a mirage, the image seemed to appear through the crumbling endoskeleton. Night was falling. It was hard to see the black form looming on the sand. Something about it beckoned. The last traces of light danced along its distant hull, reflecting a glint of rusted paint, offering gas at two ninety-nine a gallon. _Good deal_, he thought. _And the perfect place to crash for the night._

The stench of gasoline overpowered his senses the moment he stepped in the doorway. It was so thick; Logan swore he could feel it airborne against the coarse hair on the exposed area of his arms. He nearly bumped his head against what looked like the back end of a wall unit, for televisions and what not. And other…indiscriminate crap, piled high like a dump or landfill. Made it all a giant maze, a combination between the inside of an auto salvage office and a basement apartment. Through one of the blinding piles of oily rags, arbitrary parts, and broken bits, he saw the smallest pinch of light. With the reveal, came another…sound. Scuffling. Like before. The T-800 had friends? A shadow past by the wink of radiance. Wolverine ducked down and prepared to engage. Another sound arose. The faint pitter-patter of…oil bubbling? Uncharacteristically, fear stained his tender gut. Instinctively, he clamped his hand down on his beltline, running his finger along three cylinder objects. Cigars. The big kind. He hadn't seen cigars like those in years…_damn_…had it been that long? Years. For a guy who didn't gauge time like everybody else, he was certainly starting to feel it catch up to him. He'd picked them up outside New York during an evacuation mission, in a Mercedes Benz glove box sinking on the Hudson. From 1979. White. Used to be anyway. Had big round headlights. He'd smelled the cigs a bunch of times since then, knowing full well they were already stale. But, he figured…if the war ever came to an end…hell…if there ever seemed to be even the slightest spark of hope…he'd find two other guys and they'd light up and drink some motor oil. _Damn right…degrease our guts…_

_Bubbling oil…_

He craned his head back where he had come. No evidence he'd ever been there. Still the same indecipherable pesthole…maybe he could ease back toward the door. _Damn it_. Why the hell had he become so jittery so abruptly? It wasn't like he could die. _Maybe I just don't want to have to stare down another one of those things—gah! Yer going soft, old man! _He released his grip on the cigars and lunged out from behind the junk, claws drawn and ready for whatever passed for Skynet's blood.


	2. A Vacancy

Chapter One: A Vacancy.

The old man looked like he hadn't seen sunlight, or rather what passed for sunlight, in a very long time. He had on an over-sized, plaid, button up shirt, and tight bell-bottoms. The cuffs looked like elephant years. Above the neck he was nothing but a thicket of long hair and two shiny discs that concealed dark eyes. Albert Einstein meets Saturday Night Fever. Add one coffee stain AKA Wolverine's bubbling T-800 grinders. The gunk was the timeliest thing on the old scientist. Brown singe. It was the new black. Before it came the ever sheik fifth degree burns. Looked good in both nuclear winters and gamma damaged summers. Speaking of 'gamma,' Logan marveled at the sight of the quasi-familiar face, one half of its' own dynamic duo.

"Sorry about the spill," Wolverine growled placidly for the third time. "Surprised I didn't accidentally invite the troll to this little reunion."

"Forget it," Banner quelled softly as he patted an oily rag on his pant leg. "And I wouldn't worry about him." The latter dismissal at first perusal seemed casual, but behind it there lurked a mild-mannered melancholy. Typical mannerism of the ever-controlled Doctor Robert Bruce Banner, so Logan dismissed it. Even still, he'd never gotten used to the slightly eerie composure that Banner draped himself in. Now, more than ever before, in fact. Sure, Logan knew it was only out of sheer habit, and necessity, that the good doctor kept his world slightly opaque for other people's safety, but now it seemed even more distant, off balance was a better word. "I'd offer you something else to drink, but I'm afraid supplies here are low at the moment." His regard of the squalor around him raised the hairs on Logan's back. He spoke with a homey mimicry, as though he were in a house with a white picket fence, but his off beat inflections hid some deep, dark secret, like he'd buried someone in the backyard.

Logan looked around the living quarters. There was couch at the epicenter, like the heart of a town square. It had giant holes gouged in it. He could see all the way to the other end. The rats had long tunneled their nests inside and abandoned it. Either side of the cushion-less hub was like night and day, two worlds colliding into one another. One side looked like the back of any junk shop. Low work benches, undesignated tools, and a shelf with bits of discarded…everything. License plates, hubcaps, and bits of old car radiators up against the wall, that hadn't been completely stripped of the plastic yet so they could be sold for scrap. A job that would never get done. Almost nicked a compulsive streak in the short workhorse. On the other side, Logan saw the 'wall unit' he'd knocked into. In reality, it looked like a control panel ripped out of a submarine, with buttons, flashing lights, like a scene out of Crimson Tide. It went all the way up, grown literally out of the earth and cracked through the aluminum sheets in the ceiling to reach some sunlight, finding only murky cloud cover concealing a ruined sky.

"So, uh," Logan began after a while, "how's the wife and kids?" The joke wasn't well received. Banner seemed so out of it. The silence made things worse. He barely mumbled two words before he slunk down in the gnawed out lounger, watching a porthole screen on the humming control station, a kid watching static on the TV. Logan felt compelled to leave, immediately. Call it his feral instinct, but Banner's daze frightened him more than any gritting Terminator. He didn't care what had happened between Judgment Day and now that had made Banner so _off_, Logan just didn't want to be _next_, whatever that meant. Wolverine was about to wish him happy rubber rooming when Banner broke the sabbatical.

"How are you boys in Tech-Com doing?" He asked more as an inquiry at the goings on at a son's job at the bank.

"_You_ aren't a member?" The get-together thus far had made it fairly obvious that the aging Banner had taken up the survivalist route. Still, Wolverine had to ask. The idea of Banner's angrier alter ego taking it to Skynet on his _personal_ scale made Logan's picking off of HKs no better than swatting a fly with the sport's page. What a sight it would be. Maybe he could convince—

"No," Banner glowered unblinkingly. "I don't plan on it, either. Keep the brochure in your pocket."

"Take it easy, doc. Just figured with your—"

"I'm not. And won't." The first glimmer of any real emotion out of Banner, and yet still somehow, a lazy, peculiar, pretense. What Logan thought was going to be a quaint chitchat amongst two old acquaintances was turning into a role-play starring Marion Crane and Norman Bates. And where Norman went, his mother wasn't far behind. Again, the usually rough and tough Canadian was getting cold feet, and started checking for available exits. "How are they doing?" Banner asked once more, again with dwindling coherency.

"Uh…" Logan stammered. Banner's mood swings kept leaning the room on him. He cleared his throat. "Most of the_ company_ has moved to L.A. and the West Coast. Some are still scattered on the East. I got separated from my unit a few weeks ago and started heading west. We'd just given up on Detroit," he groaned.

"Detroit? Los Angeles?" Banner's voice cracked slightly. "Last I heard, you guys were in D.C. fighting the last remnants of Skynet's version of _Wideawake_."

"Damn, Bruce," Logan marveled gruffly, "that was nearly four years ago."

"Yeah, well," the scientist murmured, "they don't keep me posted."

"You…get much Tech-Com guys through here?"

Banner nodded. "Here and there. They usually send someone with supplies or contact me through the _ticker _every few months or so," he observed the porthole. "They don't exactly fill me in on any particulars. Still trying to get me to join up. No use." He leaned back and tapped his head.

Logan didn't catch it. "So, you just live out here alone?"

"I…lived…with someone for a little while."

"You could do us a lot of good."

"No…I couldn't." Banner tapped his head more distinctly. When Logan shook his, the creaky doctor leaned toward him and pulled back his graying mane. The jagged scar started from one temple and cascaded to the other. A big, serrated smile. "He's gone for good." When Bruce stood, Logan took a half a step back and impulsively unsheathed his claws on one hand. The other man didn't flinch, and seemed in a trance. He started to traipse through the muck and the trash. Logan followed. Finally, they came to the back door. It had a pop can ad on it. Outside, they quietly regarded the pile of rocks and the uneven headstone. The lettering was carved with wary craftsmanship. _Elizabeth Banner. _Miles and miles around sand bleached dunes wavered. Yet, on the grave site, a tiny patch of grass had sprouted, grown fertile on the remains.

"I could have blamed the nuclear fire on Reed," Banner sputtered. "A lot of people _did_. If he hadn't screwed with the nanites, they never would have gotten as far with it as they did. Cyberdyne, the government, any of them. I didn't though. But, Betty and I made it. It didn't _matter_ what happened as long as we had each other."

"Doc, I…"

"I crushed her…_he_ crushed her. Who do I blame now?" Banner collapsed onto his knees, bringing the shack station back into Logan's focus. He could see the very last traces of sunlight disappearing, giving away to night for hours to come, but not before outlining the glimmering metal appendages of three red-eyed visitors.


End file.
